Sinn Féin TD for Limerick, Maurice Quinlivan, has warned that the trolley crisis at University Hospital Limerick is continuing to impact patients across the MidWest region.
Deputy Quilivan made his comments after receiving a response to a Parliamentary Question, which stated that 6,062 people had left the Emergency Department in 2024 without having been treated.
He added that the last Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael government had failed to deliver enough hospital capacity over its term, and called on the Minister for Health to take adequate action to address spiralling waiting lists at UHL.
Teachta Quinlivan said:
“87,366 people presented to the Emergency department at UHL in 2024. Of those presenting, 6,062 left the hospital without completing their treatment.
“These are people who were referred by their GP, arrived by ambulance or who deemed themselves in need of hospital treatment but opted to leave the Emergency Department before being seen.
“We have an everyday trolley and capacity crisis at UHL that affects all the activities of the hospital. The lack of capacity firstly impacts those who are treated on trolleys, chairs and in hospital corridors.
“But the impact extends far beyond that. It impacts those on outpatient waiting lists who, having waited for a procedure, are informed that the procedure has been postponed, usually due to a lack of bed capacity.
“It impacts those who present at the Emergency Department and who, having been triaged, face long delays before being attended to.
“The hospital remains in crisis with elective surgeries and procedures being cancelled. The hospital cannot continue in this vein, we cannot continue to have a situation where the Full Capacity Protocol is in daily use, with thousands of patients treated on trolleys each year. In 2024, over 23,000 patients were treated on trolleys with a further 4,746 having been treated on trolleys so far in 2025.
“We have already witnessed how such trolley lists and large volumes of ED presentations can be detrimental to a patient’s health. The tragic and avoidable death of young Aoife Johnston demonstrated this.
“The Clarke report, in relation to the death of Aoife, noted that ‘all of the evidence points to the fact that a significant contributory factor to the difficulties encountered in UHL ED over the weekend of 17th and 18th December 2022 was the severely overcrowded nature of the ED on that occasion’.
“The challenges facing UHL have not just suddenly appeared, they have been brewing since a previous Fianna Fáil government opted to close the other A&Es in Nenagh, St John’s and Ennis.
“It is high time for the government to deliver safe, population and clinically underpinned care in the MidWest. The government needs to develop protected inpatient elective capacity in Limerick and the wider region, separating schedule and unscheduled care. They must also address the staffing and capacity challenges at UHL as a priority.
“I have never met a person who attended the ED at UHL who didn’t feel they had any other option but to do so as they were unwell.
“Shockingly, we now have confirmation that 6,062, an average of 17 people a day, have left UHL’s ED without completing treatment in 2024. This is an indictment of the overcrowding crisis that this and previous governments have allowed to continue daily and we need urgent intervention to finally address the scale of the crisis in the ED at UHL.”
